Young children often have difficulty understanding where they live in relation to the larger world. They get confused with the idea that they can be in a neighborhood, a city, and a country and continent at the same time. The "Me on the Map" activity will help surely help them understand thing out. 

The idea appears to have been introduced online by Jenn Bates of Finally In First based on the book Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney. The book is about maps and how different types of maps relate to one another. A young girl shows readers a map of her room, a map of her house, a map of her house of her street, all the way to her country on a map of the world. 

This activity teaches kids that the world is much bigger than they know and gives them a sense of where they are in the world. They will do a hands-on activity that shows their location from their house to their galaxy. This is a great activity to strengthen children's visual and spatial skills. This also support the principle of learning from general to specific and vice versa. 

I looked over the internet for free templates of this activity. Below are some of what I found. Just click the link to get to the templates. 


Where do I live Printable activity for kindergartners
Photo from 123homeschool4me.com


Where Am I? Printable Booklet / Foldable for Social Studies
Crafting Chicks has a free 7-page printable Me on the Map booklet.

printable me on the map
Photo from thecraftingchicks.com

noorjanan.blogspot.com has also free printables

Photo from noorjanan.blogspot.com

 
Instead of nesting circles, you may opt for nesting boxes just like the one below from pinkprincesskingdom.blogspot.com. But you will have to do it on your own since there is no free template available for this one. 

Another option is to use stackable cups similar to the ones below from:

 We Are Teachers (no free template)

stacked6_geography
Photo from weareteachers.com


Undercover Classroom (with free editable cup template)

Use these stacking cups to teach your students a geography lesson about where exactly they live in the world.
Photo from undercoverclassroom.com

I decided to go for the stackable cups. I made my own template since the free template from undercoverclassroom.com does not suit our location. I let my kids color some of the location and we stick them to our old and unused plastic cups. Here is the result of our joint work:


Here is our link to the file in case you want to use it.